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Religion Forum Index » Christian Methodist Forum » UMNS: Church connection helps group detained in El Salvador
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 Posted: Tue Mar 23, 2004 7:43 am |
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Church connection helps group detained in El Salvador
Mar. 22, 2004
A UMNS Feature
By Linda Green*
A group of students from the Wesley Foundation at San Diego State
University are thankful for the United Methodist Church's connectional
system, which helped them out of an ordeal in El Salvador.
On March 13, the Rev. Beth A. Cooper and seven students arrived in El
Salvador to do mission work on their spring break. Their plan was to
work with Habitat for Humanity and the children's program of the Union
Church of San Salvador, do mission work in the area and be exposed to
the country's culture and people.
"They were in high spirits and geared up," Cooper said.
Upon arrival, however, their high spirits dissolved when government
officials detained them at the airport. The San Diego group and 70 other
students and campus ministry leaders from U.S. universities were held on
suspicion that they were planning to influence El Salvador's upcoming
election.
Despite their denials, they were detained by 20 soldiers for 18 hours -
12 of those hours without food or water. After numerous interviews with
immigration officers, as well as intervention from United Methodists in
the United States, the group was finally released.
"I never dreamed that we would be detained," Cooper told United
Methodist News Service in a telephone interview from El Salvador. "We
did our best to be persistent and to talk with the soldiers, and then
things got kind of bizarre."
When Cooper and her students tried to get answers as to why they were
being held, they were brushed off with the response that "it would be 30
minutes." After receiving this reply time and time again, "we realized
that we were not going anywhere any time soon" she said.
Some of the soldiers were "harsh and they really took advantage of their
power," she continued. In addition, government officials repeatedly
asked the U.S. visitors for their passports and ordered them to write
down their names, passport numbers and nationality - all as part of what
Cooper described as scare tactics.
Hours into the ordeal, the group still did not know the reason for the
detention but had heard theories from the other U.S. citizens there.
What was unusual, Cooper said, was that members of some of the other
campus groups, also there for an alternative spring break, had been
allowed to enter the country without trouble.
Throughout the ordeal, each group was given a different answer from the
government officials, but the most common response was that "many
evangelists were going to come and try and sway the election," Cooper
said. Another answer was that many students were coming to the country,
bringing left-wing politics with them.
"The soldiers believed that all of these church-affiliated groups were
communists and that we were all left-wing activists who were coming down
and ruining their country ... and (planning) to sway the (presidential)
election," Cooper said.
One of the official interviews Cooper and the students had was with U.S.
Embassy staff in El Salvador, who recommended contacting as many people
back home as they could to put pressure on the El Salvadoran government.
Cooper called the Rev. Frank Wulf, director of the Wesley Foundation at
the University of California at Los Angeles. "I had a couple of numbers
with me, but I did not know how many telephone calls I would be
allowed." She called Wulf because she knew he could represent the people
of the California-Pacific Annual (regional) Conference, and he could
also contact staff with the church's Board of Higher Education and
Ministry and Board of Global Ministries.
Wulf began making telephone calls and sending e-mail messages,
contacting the Cal-Pac bishop's office and directors of connectional
ministries and Latino ministries; the education and missions boards; and
the bishop of the Methodist Church in El Salvador. E-mail went to all
campus ministers in the connection asking for prayer support. Wulf also
sent a message to the California governor's office, but "all I got back
was one of those 'thank you for calling the governor's office'"
messages, he said.
As Wulf worked from the United States, another United Methodist inside
El Salvador also tried to help by calling friends she had at the U.S.
Embassy.
"As a United Methodist pastor, I did not think of what it meant to be
connectional," Cooper said, while calling herself an advocate of the
church's connectional system. "Sometimes it works better than at other
times, (but) I'm just glad it worked as well as it did this time. I am
thankful we are out and thankful for all of the people who held us in
their prayers, who made telephone calls, who e-mailed, who had others
praying for us. It all helped."
"I'm so extremely proud of the Methodist connection," Wulf said. "When
this happened, everyone jumped to the forefront to try to be helpful and
make things happen. Anyone who wants to talk down on our connectional
system should look and see how effective this was. I'm just extremely
proud of the whole thing."
Upon release, Cooper and the students went on with their spring break
plans instead of immediately returning home. They wanted the mission
experience and to put their ordeal behind them as best they could.
"The students really wanted to fulfill what they had come down to do,"
she said, "but before they could do that, we had to have more interviews
with the head of immigration."
"It was rough," she said.
The official pelted them with allegations that they were there to ruin
his country. "Eventually, we were let in," she said.
"The El Salvadoran people that we met are a beautiful people, and we've
appreciated them sharing their lives and their culture with us," she
said. "It is a shame that we had that experience, which related to
government and politics."
The experience made Cooper more sympathetic to issues of prejudice. "And
we learned something: Despite problems that we have in our own country,
we at least have a voice. We got a taste of what it meant to be
invisible."
Cooper and the group returned to San Diego on March 20.
"We are relieved that the outcome of this situation was positive," said
the Rev. Luther Felder, director of the denomination's Section on Campus
Ministry at the United Methodist Board of Higher Education and Ministry.
"One of the things I enjoy most about being a part of the United
Methodist Church is its connectionalism," he said. "No matter where you
are in world, you are never alone because the presence of Christ and the
work of the church can be found even in a strange land."
The Rev. Jerome King del Pino, top executive at the Board of Higher
Education and Ministry, applauded the work of all the agencies and
annual conferences in helping Cooper and the students.
"The work of the campus ministry section proves that the work that we do
beyond our borders is not work that is exotic, nor is it work that is
secondary, but is core to what we do as a denomination."
*Green is a United Methodist News Service news writer in Nashville,
Tenn.
********************
United Methodist News Service
Photos and stories also available at:
http://umns.umc.org |
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